Lizzie Skurnick's Blog, page 10

"An Old-Fashioned Girl," in case you were wondering

If you would like to read one of the few love letters I have ever actually mailed to the other party, check out Library Love Fest: Lizzie Skurnick Loves Libraries!, where they've reprinted a letter I wrote to the teen branch of the ALA, YALSA, this summer. ALSO AND INCIDENTALLY, you have a chance to win one of 25!  I do love librarians — mine really was nice and let me take the same book out for weeks. (And yes, she did notice.)

Dear Librarian,

I can still remember the exact cover of the book (pin

The City that Actually Did Read this One Thing

Three of the wonderful people of Baltimore, where I lived for about 8 years, threw me a book party this weekend which was BEYOND FUN even though one friend made me read and stand on a kids' table like I was on a bima and I really feel that I almost broke it, but I just gave a big quiz about blacking and papooses and survived. AND and more relevantly…apparently my old friend Tom Hall ran the interview I did with him a few weeks ago about Shelf Discovery for WYPR's Maryland Morning with Sheilah Ka

Tabled

Who were the geniuses who invented placing books not on shelves but in stacks on tables like so many sweaters at J. Crew? I don't know, but they were smart. And I am on two tables! (Presumably more, but who knows where.) Thank you, B&N and/or marketing geniuses. Pics, this first from my agent:

Powell's in Portland

The West Village, where I made some poor Danish tourist take a picture of me on the way to therapy. She was clearly terrified that it all had something to do with drug-running or human t

I do think available bbq is a solid decision-making parameter

Don't get me wrong — I love the book reviewers. But I love the bloggers MORE, because they have no filters, and let's face it, who do you want to sit next to at a party. Here are some lovely online mentions of the book over the weekend:

From Librarian Avengers:

If I suffered from Pageant-Mom syndrome and wanted to create an exact replica of myself from the raw material of some random pre-teen girl, I would begin my narcissistic experiment in literary manipulation by having her read all of the book

I actually loved gloomy environmental guy, but I'm obsessed with this player

In my continuing campaign to use this flash link for everything audio I have ever done, I am placing below the thinger for my appearance on The Bob Edwards show, which has now been shortened so it is only me. To tell you the truth, I really liked the man who preceded me, James Lovelock, whose curmudgeonly view of the current environmental movement moved from merely amusing to completely delightful once he asserted that pesticides were not a problem because, "Of course, we're living longer than e

Then you got played

My wonderful Caketrain publisher Joseph Reed told me about this FLASH plugin so that I can put a player on the site! I am obsessed. I am especially happy as it allows me to easily link to all AUDIO, like this freakishly enjoyable interview I did with Kim Alexander of XM and Sirius's Fiction Nation. After we talked about Neanderthal rape and mothers clasping sons to bosoms and smoked whitefish porn I WAS OBSESSED and almost followed her home so that we could talk forever and ever. There is also l

Fiction Nation

Fiction Nation

Double X tags Julie and Julia (I was actually supposed to be named Julia) for BBRs!

This summer I'm toting around Lizzie Skurnick's Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, which was excerpted in Double X in July. In it, Skurnick and a few co-contributors (though it's Skurnick's warm, sardonic voice that dominates) re-read and re-assess the young-adult books that they remember loving as girls: Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, Beverly Cleary's Fifteen, Katherine Paterson's Jacob Have I Loved, and dozens more. Shelf Discovery is like a mini-bibliography

The New Yorker Addresses The Most Important Work of Our Time | Columnists | Mediaite

I'm somewhat hamstrung because my issue didn't get delivered and I can't read it online, but thank you, Glynnis, for calling out the New Yorker for not crediting me. I don't actually think Thurman knows I'm alive but it's always fun to launch accusations:

Here's the bigger question: why this piece now? And going in, the answer(s) actually seemed somewhat clear at least. Just last month Jezebel writer Lizzie Skurnick published Shelf Discovery, a collection of essays based on her enormously popular

Seriously — Ned Kelly and the Kingdom of Bees? ANYONE?

I was away this weekend and I think I forgot to post this Q&A with the marvelous Teenreads.com, who I'm sure you all know but if you DON'T is a wonderful resource for teen literary anything. I'll talk boys if you talk NED KELLY AND THE KINGDOM OF BEES:

TRC: Most of the titles in SHELF DISCOVERY feature female characters learning about themselves and their world. Do you think girls have a different relationship to books than boys? Can you recommend a "books for boys" equivalent to your book?

LS: I